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Mr. Knapp objects to immigration controls using an Article 1, Section 9 argument. I expect he reads it this way:
“The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States […] shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress”
…stopping there. But it actually reads this way:
“The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person.” (emphasis added — cb)
Perhaps Mr. Knapp missed a few lessons in American history and fails to realize that was specifically to begin the phase-out of slavery.
But if we—just for the sake of argument—accept his interpretation, then the Constitutional limits on immigration control applied only to the original thirteen states, and only up to the year 1808. One might say that anything goes now.
Ah, but he also falls back on the Tenth Amendment on the grounds that immigration control isn’t a specifically enumerate a federal power to regulate immigration. Apparently the gentleman skipped his Article 1, Section 8 lessons, too. That’s where the federal government is assigned , including the regulation of Naturalization and enforcement of the Law of Nations. That would also include—specifically in the LoN—immigration. I’ve discussed this in some detail in "Constitutionality of Immigration Control". [ Reprinted in this issue — Editor ]
Our current system of government is far from perfect. The Constitution isn’t perfect. But we’d be in far better shape if we followed all of it—while we work towards something better—instead of letting the federal government pick and choose the parts it follows or ignores. Mr. Knapp has fallen into that same trap.
Carl “Bear” Bussjaeger
[email protected]
Author: Net Assets, Bargaining Position,
The Anarchy Belt, and more
www.bussjaeger.org
Separation of medicine and state: Accept no substitute; accept no
compromise.
http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2017/tle934-20170806-02.html
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In Letter from Thomas Knapp last issue he wrote:
Re: Publisher's Note by L. Neil Smith
L. Neil Smith favors a wall along the Mexican border in order to
“protect our culture,” which he defines in terms of the Bill of Rights.
Perhaps he should read the last bit of the Bill of Rights, the 10th
Amendment. Since the Constitution does not enumerate a federal power to
regulate immigration (and in fact, in Article I, Section 9, forbids any
such power), no such federal power exists.
Neil can have his wall or he can have the Bill of Rights. He can't have
both.
Thomas Knapp
How about neither one? How about individual liberty — self ownership, self responsibility and self defense instead?
The “wall” is merely another manifestation of colossal arrogance and theft, while the “bill of rights” is an example of colossal wishful thinking, depending on the good will of a “government” with zero legitimate authority.
MamaLiberty
[email protected]
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Re: The Editor’s Notes, last issue
Many years ago, somebody gifted me 10 bitcoins, worth about $20 at the time. I don’t remember exactly when that was, but judging from the price history, it must have been around 2011. In 2014 or thereabouts, I decided to cash in on what was then worth about $8,000. So I started a cash-out process with MtGox. They went belly up with my money on account there.
The bankruptcy proceedings are stalled now, but given the huge price, they should be able to sell the remaining bitcoin and pay all their creditors, with some left over. They say they owe me 1,634,442 yen, worth $14,594 at today’s exchange rate.
Don’t know when or even if I’ll get paid, but I’ll have no complaints either way. Free money.
Bill St. Clair
[email protected]
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Chelsea Handler wants to trade Trump for this real-life dictator? — TheBlaze
This comment is the best!:
I never tire from watching liberals lose their minds over Trump. it’s the best entertainment Hollywood has put out in a while.
Jeff Fullerton
[email protected]
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Gun Rights Defender J. Neil Schulman
A video compilation of the writing, film-making, and personal addresses defending the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (RKBA), from author/filmmaker, J. Neil Schulman.
The praise Schulman has received from Academy-Award-winner and NRA President, Charlton Heston.
Pro-RKBA clips and the pro-RKBA music video, “Tried by 12.”
Schulman’s birthday remarks on the Virginia Tech massacre.
J. Neil Schulman
[email protected]
http://www.AlongsideNightMovie.com
http://Facebook.com/AlongsideNightMovie
http://Twitter.com/AlongsideNight
http://www.LadyMagdalenes.com
https://www.facebook.com/ladymagdalenes/
Blogs: http://jneilschulman.agorist.com
http://jneilschulman.rationalreview.com
The World According to J. Neil Schulman:
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Friend: http://Facebook.com/jneilschulman
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Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/J.-Neil-Schulman/e/B000APX214
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jneilschulman
Google+: https://plus.google.com/104324786572486752059
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Neil_Schulman
IMDb: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0776090/
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Re: “Several Reasons I Am Not A Conservative” by L. Neil Smith (this issue)
Dear L. Neil:
Like you I am not a conservative. If I could find a passageway I’d be living in your state-free broach universe.
I was an atheist for roughly the first half of my life on pretty much the same grounds as Ayn Rand and George H. Smith. As far as I could figure out the concept of a Supreme Being violated natural law. Yet a series of events (unfortunate or not, considering how many still-atheist friends I alienated by going public about my experiences) overcame my formidable skepticism on the question. The main book I wrote on the subject is titled I Met God — God Without Religion, Scripture or Faith. Everybody critical of me seems to leave out the part after the dash or double hyphens. I didn’t meet God in a house of worship with someone dressed in funny clothes yammering at me, possibly in a language I don’t even speak. I didn’t meet God on the pages of a book, no matter how fancy the binding. I didn’t meet God by abandoning my epistemology and accepting facts without what I considered sufficient reason. I met God because I decided experiences I’d had tested out as real. You can say they were happening in my head but that’s where everything else that has happened in my life has ended up for analysis anyway.
I decided to take two of my books I’d serialized, chapter by chapter, on my blogs, and turn them into a single printed or Kindled book titled The Heartmost Desire.
Part One is titled Unchaining the Human Heart — A Revolutionary Manifesto, and is my answer to Mao’s Little Red Book.
Part Two is titled I Met God — God Without Religion, Scripture or Faith.
I put the libertarian tract before the God stuff because one of my assertions is that when I met God I discovered he is a colleague — a fellow libertarian.
I also discovered that one of the problems of explaining to anyone that a Mind exists coterminous with Existence — and that universes can be designed and produced as residences for other split-off conscious beings — had to pay the price of no longer being omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent to pull off the trick of creating other, independent minds.
I don’t imagine I’ll succeed in getting you to read The Heartmost Desire.
But know you have at least one friend who changed his mind on this question not because he abandoned his high value for reason but because that’s where the empirical evidence led him. The experiences can’t be shared. The personal reports of the experiences can.
Sincerely,
J. Neil Schulman
[email protected]
http://www.AlongsideNightMovie.com
http://Facebook.com/AlongsideNightMovie
http://Twitter.com/AlongsideNight
http://www.LadyMagdalenes.com
https://www.facebook.com/ladymagdalenes/
Blogs: http://jneilschulman.agorist.com
http://jneilschulman.rationalreview.com
The World According to J. Neil Schulman:
http://www.jneilschulman.com
Facebook: http://Facebook.com/jneilpublic
Friend: http://Facebook.com/jneilschulman
Twitter: http://twitter.com/jneilschulman
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/jneilschulman
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/J.-Neil-Schulman/e/B000APX214
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jneilschulman
Google+: https://plus.google.com/104324786572486752059
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Neil_Schulman
IMDb: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0776090/
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Re: “Several Reasons I Am Not A Conservative” by L. Neil Smith (this issue)
Hummm, let’s see.
1. I have never seen anything to suggest that you have changed your fundamental beliefs. I have seen you make two pragmatic shifts in opinion with the objective of preserving the country and culture which founded and shaped them (Mr. Trump as cited below, and your recent exposition regarding the potential advantages of a wall along the southern border).
2. We disagree regarding a Supreme being, but there are many conservatives who hold your views, as well as other alternatives to mine. I don’t call myself a “conservative-libertarian” because of those beliefs, but because I see the need for a nation-state (limited by the confines of the Constitution, which admittedly few conservatives and no progressives seem to agree with these days) with sufficient power (but no more) to confound the ambitions of those nation states with even more regressive opinions regarding individual liberty.
3. I agree with you regarding both abortion/birth control (and “extra-marital sex”) and homosexuality, but with the caveats that (a) persons with religious opposition to these practices may reserve the right to preach and exhort against them, so long as they treat the practitioners with the same respect they should expect from them (a respect I do find notably lacking in too many of those practitioners ), and (b) under no conditions should any other person be required to pay either directly or indirectly for such practices against their will, particularly by a too-large government.
4. I do believe that there is a universal morality, and that it largely embodied in the last five of the Ten Commandments and in the Beatitudes (which exhortations are repeated in a number of religions), but that it is even more firmly embedded in natural law, viz: live (survive, the first rule of morality as defined by Mr. Heinlein), but don’t increase entropy beyond that necessary to your survival. (Admittedly that means I probably should have had less barbecue for dinner, but… I will also concede that the exhortation against adultery is a special case—while primarily aimed at ensuring that men are somewhat protected from expending their energy to provide for a genetic progeny not their own and at ensuring that all progeny are cared for adequately, there are competing imperatives, and genetic diversity is unarguably good for the race as a whole. I will not here get into the argument that belief in a Supreme Being and in an afterlife is part of our cultural attempt to negate the second law of thermodynamics.) And of course, the right to life is meaningless without the right to self defense.
TJ Mason
[email protected]
Twitter: @OneAmericanVoic
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